Pandora Unchained - B1C76: Overhaul

"Blink?" said Daphne when Haley confessed her heroic ability. "You mean, like the spell?"

"Like the spell, but without magic," said Haley, looking quite pleased with herself.

"But that's… that's at least a flesh sanctification level spell," said Daphne, flabbergasted.

"Which is why I can only use the ability once every minute and only within thirty feet," said Haley. "Oh, and it has no cast time and limited mana cost."

"But that's…" said Daphne.

"Broken," said Stephan. "Which is why heroes are theoretically able to come out on top against weaker two-star demons in a one-on-one battle."

"Stephan is correct," said Haley. "Broken is exactly what you should call a heroic ability."

"Doesn't Lawrence already do that?" asked Sorin, confused. "He teleports behind enemies all the time."

"I specifically don't teleport behind my enemies, thank you very much," said Lawrence. "It's actually an optical illusion. I just move extremely quickly under stealth, making it look like teleportation. But in the end, it's just moving really fast."

"What about your ability, Stephan?" asked Sorin. "It's that arctic rune bear form you acquired recently, isn't it?"

"Actually, my heroic ability is a bit more flexible than that," said Stephan. "Normally, I can only beastshift into creatures that I've seen before and only of the weaker variety. My ability has evolved to allow me to shift into superior creatures with magical abilities."

"Wait," said Lawrence. "Are you saying you could shift into a dragon?"

"A dragon?" mused Stephan. "Maybe I could if I cultivated for a hundred years. But wouldn't it just be better to shift into a dragon bear?"

"Sheesh," said Lawrence. "What's with you and bears?"

"It's got nothing to do with personal opinion," said Stephan. "Bears are objectively the best beast shape."

"There are obviously limitations to which forms he can take," said Haley. "Nevertheless, Stephan can exceed the normal limitations of his level, bringing his core ability up to par with a two-star cultivator's core ability. The ability will also continue being useful even after he advances to the bone-forging realm."

Sorin felt that compared to these two abilities, his own ability was somewhat lackluster. "Toxic Metabolism… it seems I lost out. I can already metabolize poisons to an extent. Moreover, I have a feeling that the strength I displayed out on the river isn't my actual strength."

"What you experienced is called a heroic outburst," Haley explained. "You only get one of those, and you'll never be able to match up to what you did in your current cultivation realm."

"Like Stephan holding down the minotaur?" asked Sorin.

"That's right," said Haley. "In any case, it's impossible that the change to your abilities is minor. If it looks that way, it must be an error in the application of it, not the ability itself. Tell me, Sorin, how does the ability differ from your usual ability? You should have an instinctual grasp of the ability and be able to explain it."

"This…" Sorin thought back to his ability description and laid it out for everyone else to analyze. "First, I can digest poisons much more quickly. At least… One hundred times more quickly."

"Doesn't that make you basically immune to poisons?" asked Gareth.

"I suppose it does," said Sorin. "One-star poisons, at least. And wait, I have partial immunity to two-star poisons. And the metabolism is different. Before, it would tire me out, but now, it replenishes me. It converts the excess poisons into mana and life force."

"Lifeforce means you can regenerate at an accelerated rate," said Haley. "It's a tier higher than life mana and will allow you to regenerate from deeper wounds and much more efficiently than a healing potion."

"So wait, you're saying Sorin should go around carrying vials of poison instead of healing potions?" said Lawrence jokingly.

"So it seems," said Sorin thoughtfully. "The ability has some other benefits. First, it's improved my ability to retrieve my poisons. Whether it's my poisonous blood or mana I've injected into a target, I can retrieve it with high efficiency. And if I use external poisons to damage or incapacitate my enemies, I could then absorb the poison and digest them for a healing effect."

Daphne didn't seem too keen on Sorin's ability. "If it isn't offense-related, isn't it terrible? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it'll work wonders with your staying power, given how much your mana circulation speed has increased, but it's not exactly going to make the difference when fighting a two-star demon."

"Regeneration is much more powerful than you're giving it credit for," said Stephan. "Especially for someone like Sorin, who needs time to wear down an enemy. He also needs to take risks to land those first strikes."

When he put it that way, Sorin couldn't help but agree. His fighting style was currently too cautious, and he often didn't dare approach two-star demons for more than short bursts. If he had access to life force in battle, he wouldn't need to worry about silly things like organ trauma and cracked bones and torn ligaments.

"Anyway, that about covers it," said Haley. "Only one question remains: Are you going to continue as a team, or will you split up?"

"Question!" said Daphne.

"Shoot," said Haley.

"Must we fight stronger enemies, or can one become a hero by torching thousands of demons to the ground?" asked Daphne.

"This… honestly, I have no idea," said Haley.

"That didn't sound like a no," said Daphne. "In that case, I'll give it a go."

"I'm obviously in," said Lawrence. "I mean, I've finally found teammates that are as good-looking and brilliant as ah!" He yelped as Stephan tapped his other shoulder with a giant bear claw. "Hey! That's not fair. You didn't give me time to prepare."

"Hm…" Gareth was the only one who seemed undecided. "I'll stay. For now. If I start holding you all back, I'll leave the team."

"I'm sure you won't hold us back," Stephan started, but Gareth cut him off.

"I'll be the one to decide if I'm holding you all back or not," said Gareth. "You heard what she said. Becoming a hero involves risking your life. I'm honestly a very risk-averse individual. Are you fine with my answer, Miss York?"

"I'm not pushing anyone to make any specific decisions," said Haley. "As long as you realize that since you're part of a hero's team, you'll be called out to the same missions. That means taking a lot more risks."

"Got it," said Gareth. Out of all their team members, he was the most pragmatic.

Once Haley departed, Sorin led his teammates back to a private room to investigate the situation with their meridians. Daphne and Gareth were well on their way to opening their hero meridian and had already unlocked 14 out of 24 seals. Lawrence, on the other hand, had stalled out at eight seals. Given Haley's explanation, Sorin theorized it had to do with his cowardly fighting style.

"I'm not a coward," said Lawrence. "I'm just very careful about the missions I pick."

"You're going to have to take risks if you want to keep up with Papa Bear here," said Stephan. "Stick your neck out a little, and I'm sure you'll figure it out. Actually, it's nice to have someone who can tell us exactly how much progress we're making. No one in the York clan can visualize extraordinary meridians so clearly."

"I also wouldn't let Haley discourage everyone," said Sorin. "In case you didn't notice, my cultivation level just increased."

"Which means..." said Lawrence. His eyes widened when a whip coiled around his body like a snake and injected him with paralytic poison. "No! Sorin! Spare me!"

Sorin ignored Lawrence's pleas and injected a stream of mana into his meridians. With the changes to his meridian network and the overall transformation in his body, it was a simple matter to materialize a poison needle and scaffolding to clear another meridian. Lawrence's Yin Linking meridian was pierced through without any problems; unfortunately, he failed in opening Lawrence's sixth extraordinary meridian, and would need to wait for his next breakthrough to make an attempt.

Following his success with Lawrence, Sorin successfully unlocked a portion of Gareth and Daphne's potential until they each had a total of 15 unlocked extraordinary meridians.

"I bet the Kepler Clan would split blood if they found out what Sorin was doing," said Stephan heartily. "I've heard of the Kepler Clan's meridian unlocking method, but it's obviously not this potent. My clan's elders said there's at least a 50% chance of failure during the process, but you didn't even fail once."

"It has to do with my cultivation method," Sorin admitted. "Therefore, my confidence in unlocking an additional meridian once I break through."

"Don't worry, we'll keep your secret," said Gareth. "Stephan, what's next on our agenda?"

"Rest and stand by," said Stephan. "Apparently, our team is too important to send out on corpse duty now."

"Then how are we supposed to become heroes?" whined Lawrence.

"There'll be plenty of time for that," said Stephan. "Judging by the situation with the poison, this demon tide is going to be much more dangerous than usual. So, if anyone has been hoarding money, spend it. Don't save up in situations like this, or it won't just be you that ends up dead, but your friends as well."

Sorin nodded solemnly and vowed to mix up additional poisons during his downtime.

The next thing Sorin did was follow Daphne back to the Mages Guild. They rented a training room and began the painful process of modifying spell forms. "No! I said faster and more perfectly, now slower and clumsier!"

"Faster and more perfectly isn't exactly the best pointer," said Sorin. "Any specific things I should look out for?"

Daphne massaged her brow. "I hate non-fire spells. They're so complicated and unrefined. Um… how about you tighten your weave around the mana injection point?"

"Like this?" said Sorin, summoning a much larger veridian smoke bomb than he was used to.

"Exactly!" said Daphne. "That should be about double how much poison you could do before. The efficiency on this spell is bad, so that's all we can accomplish."

"What about Antimage's Blade?" asked Sorin.

"Can't alter it," said Daphne. "Same with Ophidian Eye. It's just not responsive to an increase in mana output."

Threading the Spear was, fortunately, much easier to modify than a Veridian spell bomb. Sorin's output was less restricted by his spiritual sense and more by his mana throughput. Since it wasn't practical to charge a spell for more than 3 seconds, he'd only been able to blast out around 20 mana needles at a time in a random spray. Now, he was able to increase the count to 40. The distance he could send them flying also increased by 50%. The potency of the needles, however, remained unchanged.

Once the spell forms were finalized, Sorin bid Daphne farewell and returned to the poison workshop, where Mr. Primrose was hard at work creating large batches of poison for the defense effort.

Sorin's immediate goal was making money, so he quickly cleared the one-star medical missions. He paid special attention to Marcus's mission and noticed that manabane poisons had been added to the request.

How did he figure it out? thought Sorin as he looked through the list of poisons. It isn't obvious from the earlier formulas to use manabane poisons. Wait a minute – my blood! He cursed inwardly as he realized he'd slipped up. Of course, Marcus was able to figure it out – he had an entire absorptive pad full of poisonous blood to analyze in the laboratory.

Refusing to craft the poison would only arouse suspicion, given the high price. Sorin could only accept the mission. Moreover, testing such a concoction would be difficult, as a high fatality rate accompanied it.

At least a two-star physician presiding over the process will decrease the odds of death, thought Sorin. Permanent injuries can't be prevented, so he'll need to be discrete in how he carries out his experiments.

There were quite a few possibilities. First, Marcus could experiment on captured demons. Alternatively, he could experiment on cadavers. While it was theoretically possible to experiment on death row prisoners with approval, the Bloodwood Outpost did not have many such individuals, and the data would not be statistically significant.

Wait a minute. Sorin froze halfway through, concocting vermillion heart poison. The slight pause was enough to burn the mixture irredeemably, leading to the loss of 75 gold in medicinal ingredients. But Sorin didn't care – he quickly picked up the cauldron and upended it into a waste bucket before continuing his train of thought. The veterans! The veterans are signing up for an experimental treatment! I overlooked it before because I was assuming he was performing primary meridian openings, but extraordinary meridian openings are extremely risky.

Realizing his abnormal state, Sorin forced himself to calm down. At this point, it was all conjecture and speculation on his part. Just because Marcus was zeroing in on the formula, it didn't mean he would immediately start carrying out live human trials.

Still, it was best to be prudent with this sort of thing. This was especially the case since Sorin was aware of the tincture formulas and knew firsthand from Sirius Kepler's research notes how deadly the experiments would be. Sighing, Sorin cleaned up the workshop and left the Alchemists Guild. There was only one person he could rely on in a situation like this: his trusty lab assistant, Lawrence.